Amidst the recent flood of rhetorical sewage spewing forth from the usual Leftist suspects on and around the Martin Luther King holiday, was a statement from Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton that the Bush Administration was "the worst Administration that ever governed our country".

It seems like the Clintons are either lousy students of history – or just have very short memories. During the 1992 campaign, they claimed that we were in the worst economy in 50 years. Really? I believe the Carter years of double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, and double digit unemployment WERE between 1942 and 1992. I doubt many folk living thru the George H W Bush administration had a nostalgic longing to return to the "good ole' days" of life under Carter!

So now we're being governed by the "worst Administration EVER''? How they love to toss those superlatives!

Allow me to refresh your historical memories, and submit a few of my own candidates who could at least make for an interesting race for the title of "worst ever"

Working backward chronologically, Senator Clinton's own husband would at least rate mentioning as a candidate. The integrity of the office suffered greatly under Mr. Clinton. If the Monica Incident is completely discounted, Clinton is still remembered for continuous scandals from troopergate to hair-gate, to foster-gate, to Waco, to Elion Gonzales, to China-gate to pardon-gate.

Ford: Did anyone think wearing a WIN (Whip Inflation Now) button was going to fix the economy? Here's a guy who was appointed president without EVER being elected, and couldn't win a complete term!

Nixon: Watergate? Gas lines?

Johnson: Vietnam? He wouldn't even TRY to get re-elected.

And that's just within the last 40 years. Hillary said Bush was the worst EVER!! Let's look a bit further back:

How about Herbert Hoover? He presided over a little setback known as the GREAT DEPRESSION!

Andrew Johnson (successor to Lincoln) was the only other president besides Clinton who was impeached. His administration was replete with corruption, and he faced impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice (just like Clinton).

Yes, factual history is just a minor annoying detail when it might impede the rhetorical advantage that might me gained by disparaging the current administration. Bush must be seen to preside over the worst economy, the worst domestic policy, the worst foreign policy and the worst overall administration in HISTORY – if the Leftists are to regain power.

Remember the big deal that the dems were making about Up-Armoring our HumVees a while back? The Libs wanted them Up-Armored overnight, while not giving any consideration to the facts. I wrote an article in December of 2004 making the following points in that debate:

1) Humvees were never intended to be armored personnel carriers (we HAVE APCs for that!). They are simple motorized transportation, that not long ago would have been relegated to a jeep – which rarely had even a canvas door on it!

2) Outfitting an "Up-Armored HumVee is not a simple matter of slapping on a couple of sheets of steel plating. The armor kit weighs upward of a couple of TONS. Installing it then requires modivications of the suspension to carry that extra weight, of the braking system (to keep the vehicle from slamming into the one in front of it due to the additional inertia of all that weight in motion), and even of the engine and transmission to enable the newly heavyweight machine to perform in uneven terrain. All this takes time and money.

3) The Administration has moved men and material as quickly as possible to accomplish the up armoring process… but it must be borne in mind that no amount of modification will make our troops and equipment invulnerable. Roadside bombs can and do take out vehicles heavier and better armored than an up-armored HumVee.

Well, forgive the metaphor, but the Up-Armor debate has gotten a retread! And even "under the radar on Iraq" Hillary has mustered up the gumption to take a position on it!

A group called Soldiers for the Truth leaked an unpublished Pentagon study that found that a significant number of Marines killed in Iraq from upper body wounds might have survived with extra body armor, as these wounds struck gaps in armor on the sides under the arms. (Well, CLUE!! And more still would have survived if they were covered head to toe in a foot of concrete!)

Of course the New York Times latched onto the story, and it has spread like wildfire from there. Next thing you know, Hillary is on "Good Morning America" blasting the "incompetent" Bush Administration for it's "unforgivable" failure to provide more armor. But of course, the facts are not given much consideration.

1) Many lives have been saved by the armor that is in place. Our troops extol the virtues of the EXISTING body armor.

2) There is no shortage of current technology body armor. While it is true that the initial supply at the beginning of Iraqi operations was slow in coming – there is currently such a surplus that excess body armor is being used for training in the states.

3) Troops currently patrol with between 70 and 100 lbs of armor and equipment in desert heat. Many say they would risk patroling WITHOUT the existing armor if they were permitted to.

4) Body Armor which is all-enclosing is not even developed, let alone currently deployable. Factors which must be accounted for in its development include accounting for venting perspiration and heat to prevent heatstroke and dehydration; flexibility, weight, comfort and mobility to allow the wearer to actually function and perform their mission while so outfitted; and costs.

5) As with HumVees, the concept of invulnerability in war is a fairy tale. There WILL be casualties regardless of any protective precautions taken. The benefits of such armor must be weighed against the costs and risks of increased weight, decreased mobility etc. Protection must be balanced against the ability to perform the mission. One cannot wage a war without the risk of casualties.

It would be nice if those who purport to speak for the troops, express concern for the troops, and crusade for the safety of the troops would ever actually speak to the troops and LISTEN to the troops!

In the last few weeks, the online world has suddenly gotten much more dangerous - kinda like a Cyber-AIDS epidemic! (See my recent article at http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=11307). One of the worst out there is the Beovins Trojan which, once it infects you, searches out and downloads numerous ADDITIONAL very nasty Trojans like SmitFraud, QuickNavigate, SpySheriff, Winstall, etc. All of these are very stealthy and difficult to remove. Some will disable your Antivirus, AntiSpyware, and even your Firewall. Most of the victims of this pest are people who visit porn and file sharing sites.

Going to file sharing sites such as KazAa, Morpheus, LimeWire, P2P Network etc are much like taking a daily trip down to the red light district for a little unprotected action! You may pick up something you don't want while you're getting some that you might want.

Beovins (the one that opens the doors WIDE) is often installed by the victim being enticed to view some video with a "cool" description and a link. Clicking that link starts what appears to be your media player... but instead of playing a video it gives a message "unable to play video - download needed codec here". Unfortunately, the "VideoCodec" is actually the bug. From that point on, you have two choices... invest in numerous hours of a very knowledgeable IT Professional's time or wipe the drive and start over! "Free" downloads of music and other files aren't so "free" when you must invest serious jack in repairing your machine, or when you must lose EVERYTHING to a Hard Drive reformat and rebuild.

Symptoms of such an infection will be the takeover of your background wallpaper with a text box warning that your are infected with spyware, a continuous popup in the lower right corner appearing to be a System Alert warning of spyware detected, and multiple popup windows telling you to start scans. (If you fall for any of these and click the links, you'll get even FURTHER infected!) Popups will then make being productively online virtually impossible.

As my readers know, when not playing political pundit, my mild mannered alter-ego is a professional IT Specialist Techie Nerd. In fact, I have a name plaque at my desk with a military insignia of a gold oak leaf, and the name "Major Geek" – an epithet I've carried since 1996.

Recently the online world has become a much more threatening place – with all sorts of scumware floating around. This has prompted this article as a public service to my readers.

Last week it became public knowledge that a flaw in Windows involving the handling of graphics files which can make the simple act of viewing an image – in an email or on a website – to be all that is required to allow malicious code to be loaded onto your machine. Microsoft has issued an advisory, and a patch is due to be released on January 10th, assuming it passes Microsoft's testing. Meantime SANS has released an unofficial patch which appears to be safe and effective.

There are a number of new malware threats which cloak themselves well, and some of which actually disable your protective software. They'll cripple antivirus, antispyware and even firewall software – making detection and removal much more difficult.

Our friends at SONY BMG slipped us a mickie in 2005 with their "copy protection" scheme which stealthily installed low level "rootkit" software on your PC if you tried to play their music CDs on your PC. This is code that is not detected by antivirus/antispy – but can be exploited to give a malicious invader full administrative control of your PC. Several variations of malicious code exploiting this vulnerability have surfaced in the short time the rootkit was being put on Sony BMG's CDs before they pulled the offending code due to the overwhelming outcry over security issues.

No one should be online today without a complete complement of protective software. A current antivirus with a subscription to updated antivirus signatures and automatic update features is essential. Do not think for a moment that the antivirus that came with your computer is continuing to protect you once the signature update subscription expires if you don't renew it! It only recognizes threats as new as the last update. Any newer threats are completely unrecognized.

Antivirus alone is inadequate. Trojans, adware and spyware are a different animal than viruses and need a different immunization. (There are only a few really effective and reputable antispyware programs out there. There are also many ROGUE programs, with soundalike names but which are themselves malware. www.spywarewarrior.com has an excellent listing of rogue programs, but when in doubt – DON'T. Never accept a download of anything that purports to fix your computer which advertises to you via a popup screen! You're asking for trouble.) Microsoft has a free download of their Antispyware – it's good but won't run on Windows versions prior to Win2000. E-Trust's Pest Patrol is my personal favorite… it's not free but not expensive, and in my experience finds pests that the freebies won't find. It has one of the most extensive libraries of malware signatures in the industry. Spybot Search & Destroy is also a freebie download – and is also not bad.

The third leg for a stable stool is a firewall. Windows Firewall in enabled by default in Windows XP SP2, but is either not enabled or absent in the various older Windows Operating Systems. ZoneAlarm is an excellent free firewall (they have an enhanced paid version as well), which adds the functionality of processing OUTGOING traffic as well as incoming – which Windows firewall does not.

Finally, there is an excellent online scanner which will find unwanted code on your PC which cloaks itself from INSTALLED Antivirus/Antispy software. It is found at http://housecall65.trendmicro.com/. Feel free also to visit the "Recommended" links to some of my favorite protective tools and useful utilities found in the right hand column of this page.

Nowadays, one must be vigilant or be prepared for the potential consequences of laxity. I hope I've been helpful in raising your awareness.

Doug Edelman is a conservative political commentator and a contributing editor for The Conservative Voice, and his work is also seen on News By Us, The American Daily, The Post Chronicle, Capitol Hill Coffee House etc. None of these pays him, so for the support of his family, he is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business. He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains this blog.

I have recently found myself somewhat amused at some ironies centered around environmentalists (and other liberals) and oil. See if you also find these ironic.

There is enough oil in the Gulf of Mexico and in Alaska to essentially END our dependence on foreign oil. Yet the Leftists refuse to allow us to drill in either location citing environmental concerns.

Hurricane Katrina tore an oil rig from its moorings and drove it onto the Gulf shore. How much oil was spilled? None.

Yet it's very well known that drilling platforms provide very welcoming habitat to all kinds of marine life. HMMM.

Drilling in ANWR is supposedly going to ruin the "pristine" wildlife refuge. Yet history has shown with the original Alaskan Oil Pipeline that the indigenous wildlife is not disturbed by drilling & pumping operations… but in fact they provide additional habitat enhancement. The preserve is HUGE, and the drilling operations proposed would occupy a miniscule percentage of the real estate. Even if the presence of these operations DID disturb the local Caribou… they could walk away a mile or two and not even see or hear them… and it's not like one square mile of tundra looks that much different than another! They have millions of acres of habitat!

So we're left to IMPORT our oil. Have you ever given thought to how those billions of barrels of oil get here from the Middle East? Yup, they arrive in oceangoing ships. Now THERE'S an environmentally friendly solution! Remember Exxon Valdez? Sure it's rare to have a Tanker run aground – but ships DO get in trouble at sea. What's the first line of defense for a ship in trouble? Lighten the load – dump the cargo. So we can't drill domestically and pump through pipelines (which have a very low likelihood of a spill, and where they do spill – the volume is insignificant compared to a tanker spill) so instead, virtually every barrel of oil we consume must first float over here on a (diesel burning) ship! Hmmm.

Meantime, the Left decries high oil prices! Well, if we drilled and pumped our own, we'd have a little more control over that! Oh yeah, and if we had a few more refineries, we could turn that crude into useable products faster and cheaper… but thanks to the environmentalists we haven't built a refinery since the Carter Administration. We have, however, lost a few refineries in that time. Our refining capacity is less than it was during the gas lines of the 70s.

The refineries we do have are forced by environmentalist inspired law to make boutique blends and formulations – varying from one geographical location to another. Gasoline formulated for Detroit can't be sold in Pittsburgh. Gas meant for Utah can't go to California. Refineries must not only go through the processing of multiple formulations, they must attempt to predict demand for each type. If they make too little of one formulation, the price in the area it's destined for must go up as supply/demand dictates. If they make too much of another grade, the price will drop for the same reason – making for wide disparity of gas prices from location to location. The glut of one region can't be tapped to assuage the shortage in another because of the special formulation requirements. But when prices are higher in one region than in another, the Left shouts "Gouging". Hmmm.

On the subject of gouging and "windfall profits" one must remember that while the raw numbers may seem large – billions of dollars of profit – those profits represent a profit-to-revenue ratio of less than 10% -- a much smaller margin than most businesses and industries. And who gets those profits? The oil companies are not mom and pop shops… they're publicly held corporations. WIDELY HELD corporations. There is hardly a mutual fund, pension plan or investment club that doesn't have SOME of it's assets in oil companies. So who profits? Nearly EVERYONE!! Got a 401 (k) or IRA in a mutual fund? I'll bet YOU are an oil profiteer! Hmmm.

Yes, the ironies seem to go on and on when it comes to oil and the Left.